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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  December 24, 2015 11:41pm-12:01am EST

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[cheers and applause] ms. heuvel: very briefly, our priorities are skewed. i would say we must end endless wars as america's engagement with the world. [applause] ms. heuvel: america's policing of the world has detracted from the real security needs, tackling inequality, redefining security at home. and one thing the president could do in the first two hours is understanding the transition and close the 800 bases ringing this world. they are not going to modernize nuclear weapons.
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they are not going to begin to take them down to a level. just understand what endless war has done to damage the principles that could be deployed to end inequality in this country. [applause] ms. poo: before we close out, i just want to take a moment to recognize katrina, van. thank you so much. ms. heuvel: thank you, ai-jen. judge cordell: thank you to professor reich. [applause] judge cordell: thanks to ai-jen poo, director of the national domestic workers alliance. [applause]
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judge cordell: thank you to van jones, special white house advisor to green jobs. [applause] judge cordell: and thank you to katrina vanden heuvel. [applause] judge cordell: we also thank everyone in attendance tonight. this has been co-presented by the nation magazine. the conscience of our country for 150 years and counting. now this meeting is adjourned. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] on the next washington journal, a look at how campaign 2016 has different from past
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campaigns. glastris.is paul and then, craig shirley. at 7:00on journal, live a.m. every morning. you can join the conversation with comments and calls. >> sunday night on c-span, the bbc reviews year in parliament, looking back at issues including the u.k. future membership. combating isis in syria. the election of a new labour party leader. >> this holiday weekend, american history tv on c-span three has three days of feature programming. toinning friday evening,
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mark the one 25th anniversary of the birth of president eisenhower. his daughters -- granddaughters gather for a rare family discussion at gettysburg college. talk about his military and political career, as well as his legacy. and relevance for 21st century americans. ago, rosa60 years parks to fight a city ordinance for blacks to leave a bus. instigate theed montgomery bus boycott. as we hear from freddie gray, an attorney for those of parks. and demonstrators. a civil war historian on little-known aspects of the lives and leadership of ulysses grant and robert e. lee.
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edit 4:00, a 1965 progress projects.nasa's 9:00, rick burns on how the public learns about history through film and television. history, all weekend and on holidays. only on c-span. >> of next, author matthew green on his book. he argues minority parties yield more influence in the house than previously thought. this is just under one hour. al. we are joined by matthew green, associate professor of politics at catholic university and author of "underdog politics: the minority party in the u.s. house of representatives." thank you for being with us this morning. great power ofhe
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the minority in the u.s. senate. it is not so well known that the minority has power in the u.s. house. some: i was watching things in the minority party was doing in the 1990's and i was interested in how much energy they were putting into the things they were doing. it made me think, why is the minority party putting energy into four procedures and protests on the floor when they are presumably powerless? that thingsear they're doing will make a difference as far as winning elections. that is what people my interest and i started going back and looking at history starting with the 1970's. looking at all the things the minority party doesn't house. -- it does in the house. host: you call the minority party the neglected stepchild of the house. and conventional
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wisdom follows the same logic, seems the minority party does not matter. in the senate, they can slow things down and filibuster a bill. there is an assumption that they don't matter. part of the goal of this book was to rectify that and say the minority party does matter and what they do is interesting. host: the focus of the book -- you do go back in history -- your focus goes back to the minority parties beginning in the 1970's. , a look atrefresher who the minority party was, going back to 1971. job board from 1971-1994, republicans in the minority. from 1995-2006, the democrats are in the
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minority with the election of 1994. in 1995 -- 2007, republicans gain power again -- democrats gain power again. john boehner is the minority leader. the election of 2010 change that and nancy pelosi has been the minority leader since 2011. is part of being in the minority a constant battle of wanting to be in the majority? youare always trying to -- have a dual role. a legislator and trying to get your party in the majority. exactly right. something we see now especially because competition for control of the house increased dramatically. when i started the book in the 1970's at a time when the
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republican minority cannot see a path to being in the majority, the democrats have a lock on the house, the republicans want to be in the majority, but they are not sure how to do it. they're focusing more on other things like policy, turn to get what policy outcomes they can. that starts to change in the early 1980's. fast-forward to now come in the minority still cares about other things, policy, procedure, the presidency, their primary focus is how can we become the majority party. it is a lot more fun to be in the majority in the house. host: we welcome your calls and comments about the minority in power in the u.s. house in the year that has just happened in congress. 202-748-8000 four democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. all others, 202-748-8002.
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or send us a tweet. john boehner in the majority. his stepping down as speaker was driven by a minority of that majority in terms of the conservative caucus pressing forward with getting any speaker. i wanted to show you the comments of john boehner as he in october.ro [video clip] >> my, oh my, what a wonderful day. i used to sing that on my way to work in the morning. my mission every day is to fight for a smaller, less costly and more countable government. advancedity has conservative reforms that will help our children and their children. it has become clear to me that this prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable harm to the institution. this morning, i informed my colleagues that i will resign
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from the speakership and resign from congress at the end of october. as you've often heard me say, this is not about me. it is about the people, about the institution. just yesterday, we witnessed the awesome sight of pope francis addressing the greatest legislative body in the world. heed hisat we will all call to live by the golden rule. , i started thinking about this. this morning, i woke up and said today iss and decided the day i will do this. as simple as that. host: matthew green, a regular watcher of politics. what did you think? guest: i was quite surprised at first. i had no idea that he would be .esigning
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johnof the story here with boehner is about the minority within the majority party. the conservatives who have been unhappy with his leadership style. there is also a story here about the minority party. if you are a majority party in the house but you cannot keep it unified as the minority party, the minority has leverage. he has had difficulty getting legislation passed because he cannot get the democrats to vote for it and he cannot muster a majority of his own party to vote for it. you've given some additional power and influence to the minority party. that's one of the themes of the book. unity is important for the minority party. host: they have the power over the summer when the appropriation bills were moving prepared. there was language about the confederate flag. democrats helped grind the deliberations to a halt. andt: there are techniques
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procedures the minority party in the house can use to slow things down. it doesn't get as much attention as the senate does because those techniques are used more often. offered a motion to adjourn, the house has to vote on those things and she offered a privileged motion having to do with the confederate flag. that brought up this issue. there is ways the minority in the house can force issues onto the floor agenda and make the majority party have to respond to them. back at 40e looking plus years back to 1971. who has been the most effective minority in the last 44 years? guest: the most effective minority -- it is hard to say. periods, sometimes the party is very effective and sometimes is not. it depends on the circumstances. host: who may be president. guest: exactly.
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the republicans in the first years of obama's presidency were very good and using procedures to slow things down and bring things to the agenda. before that, the democrats were innovative. one person that stands out in the book for being the most influential would be newt gingrich. for: 202-748-8001 republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats and all others, 202-748-8002. "underdog politics: the minority party in the u.s. house of representatives." matthew green is our guest. morgantown, west virginia. on that, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to ask if professor green had looked at the actions of third party representatives in the house. guest: the short answer is no. there has not been that many in recent history. third parties were bigger, a
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bigger presence in the house in the early 20th century and 19 century. by the time this book started in the 1970's, almost everybody is in one of the two major parties. it is interesting that some have suggested that members of the freedom caucus could be considered something of a third-party. i do not think they are. to the extent to which they have their own agenda, you have an interesting dynamic where you have a majority party that is not really a majority but plurality. they have to negotiate with the two other parties to get a majority coalition. host: do you have a follow-up question? marcus in whitehall, pennsylvania. democrats lied. caller: good morning, gentlemen. -- democrats line. got inen speaker pelosi , i sent a document to
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influential people and it was all about institutional dissemination. the ceiling that has never been broken. -- that isn 1960 what happened there. it is people that make history. about the caller talked presidents. i want to read a comment from part of your book where you are talking about ronald reagan. and therety parties leaders are likely to dedicate a good amount of effort to helping their same party president or presidential candidate. if reagan were not president,
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hootsuld not be worth two as a minority." was this a new tactic? guest: to some extent, yes. the use of the floor for messaging purposes got its start in the late 70's, early 80's. it was republicans that initiated that. one thing that is important about the quote, everybody assumes the minority party cares about being in the majority. that is what matters most to them. but one of the important arguments i make in the book, presidential politics matter as well. while michael is feeling some pressure from members of his party -- we need reagan. we are republicans. we have to work together.
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that gives us more leverage and influence. host: you have a cartoon in your book about obama reaching out his hand right after the election. and a fist from house republicans. the most mileage from that seem to be mitch mcconnell. it worked well for democrats to repeat that line over and over again. guest: there is a balancing act that minority parties have to play. they may disagree with the president of the opposite party. they don't feel an obligation to help him carry out his agenda. they don't want a reputation of being obstructionist. as we saw with mcconnell, that was used by democrats. you only care about partisan gameplaying. this is one of the delicate balancing act's that parties have to play with dealing with a
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president of the opposite party. host: send us a tweet. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. all others, 202-748-8002. this is joe in carrollton, virginia. independent line. caller: yes. weretened to what you saying this morning. i went to a form of a while back where robert gates spoke. he made a comment that until to make votingd patriotically what was good for , nothing will change in congress. i find that to be very true and i still see it today. your comments on that, please. guest: the concluding chapter of the book is